Far right joins media harassment campaign: Self-censorship in
France

By Dominique Vidal, Le Monde diplomatique, December
2002

Can you criticise Israel's policy towards the Palestinians
without being accused of antisemitism? Can you even report from Israel
with honesty? French journalists are beginning to ask these questions
after a sustained and organised campaign of harassment against the
media.

Israeli, Palestinian and French specialists met in Nice just over a
year ago in what was supposed to have been an academic symposium to
discuss rationality and emotion in the media. But the event
seemed more like a kangeroo court, and the accused were two
journalists from the French Press Agency (AFP), a former Libération
correspondent in Jerusalem, a journalist on Le Monde diplomatique, and
a couple of university lecturers, almost all of whom were
Jewish. Their main accuser was a self-styled geopolitician and
expert on the Islamic world, Alexandre Del Valle, who was
supported by two academics, Frédéric Encel and Jacques Tarnero, and
Maurice Szafran, who is editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine
Marianne. Del Valle and his assistants were backed by the city's
Jewish organisations.

This episode can be seen as a trial run for the later media witch hunt
conducted by unconditional supporters of Israel. It came soon after an
opinion poll (1) showing that, while French people were more
sympathetic to Israel than to Palestine (43 % to 32 %), they no longer
believed that the Palestinians alone were responsible for the failure
of the Camp David summit. An overwhelming majority (75 %)thought both
sides equally to blame. There was more sympathy for the Israeli than
the Palestinian position on Jerusalem (25 % to 17 %), but the opposite
was true regarding the Israeli settlements (15 % to 36 %) and the
return of Palestinian refugees to Israel (18 % to 27 %); 83 % favoured
a two-state solution to the conflict. Finally, 61 % found France's
Middle East policy even-handed, 12 % too favourable to the Israelis
and 6 % too favourable to the Palestinians. Ariel Sharon's
policies had never enjoyed so little support in France.

Michel Darmon, chairman of the France-Israel association, concluded
that the Jewish community in France had been fighting the wrong battle
for a decade: Our enemy isn't Jean-Marie Le Pen. It's
French foreign policy. Elisabeth Schemla a former Nouvel
Observateur journalist who has her own Middle East website, said the
struggle for public opinion was a world-wide battle which Sharon had
lost in two years.

If the association's struggle is to influence government policy,
then many French Jews have to be enlisted in a fight to pressure the
media. The enforcers of orthodoxy exploit the idea of ‘a
threat to Jewish existence’, says Sylvain Cypel, a
journalist on Le Monde. They appeal to the historical precedent of
the Holocaust, when the Jewish resistance movements—left and
rightwing Zionists, communists and Bundists (2)—had no option
but to unite against Nazi savagery. A ‘threat to Israel's
existence’ is used to close ranks in the Jewish community and
delegitimise dissent.

This imposed unity has been based on anxieties after suicide bombings
in Israel and contemptible attacks on Jews in France; the contemporary
Jewish identity crisis also contributes (3). To combat the dangers,
there has been an attempt to form a common front between intellectuals
from both the left and the far right, an unnatural alliance in which
far right attitudes prevail. Islamic fundamentalism has been equated
with Islam as a whole, and with terrorism.

Roger Cukierman, who is chairman of the Representative Council of
Jewish Institutions in France (Crif) described the far right's
initial success in the French presidential election as a message to
Muslims not to make trouble (4). While Bruno Mégret, who left Le
Pen's Front National to form his own far-right group, declared:
Faced with Islamic fundamentalism, we share the anxieties of the
representative bodies of French Jewry.

Anti-Arab discourse

The closing of ranks in the Jewish community, according to a
neo-fascist review, is accompanied by an often crudely racist
anti-Arab discourse. Jewish communal organisations are calling upon
intellectuals close to the radical right, like Alexandre Del Valle,
who are known for their opposition to Islam. These people are now
invited to speak at conferences and on radio and television
programmes, provided they take the correct position on Israel. We have
even seen the creation of an ultra-racist website called SOS-racaille
(5), steered from a distance by Zionist organisations like Betar. The
Zionist militias are now courting the far-right movements they have
been fighting on the streets for 30 years (6).

Alexandre Del Valle (real name Marc D'Anna), has become the
darling of some Jewish organisations, although for many years he
pleaded the cause of rightwing extremists and Catholic
fundamentalists. He supported Jean-Pierre Chevènement's
Republican pole during the presidential campaign, but it is
hard to believe he has turned his back on the far right when he
writes: What we are up against is a third totalitarian system, a
worldwide movement whose aim is to bring the whole planet under
Islamic rule by waging a war of civilisations and religions (7).

Because my enemy's enemy is my friend, we find Pierre-André
Taguieff, a philosopher and political scientist, describing as
judeophobic Islamists, anti-Zionists, leftists,
anti-globalisation militants and self-hating Jews, while
Jacques Tarnero, a chargé de mission under former prime minister
Laurent Fabius, describes the revamped vocabulary of progressive
politics that clothes the old anti-Jewish hatred in acceptable, almost
virtuous garb.

Many supporters of Israel seem Stalinist in their belief that the end
justifies the means. They have created dozens of unacceptable
websites, including one that corrects AFP copy by replacing the
words occupied territories by western Eretz Israel,
describing Palestinians as pollutants and referring to the
murder of Palestinians as neutralisation. The militant Metula
News Agency specialises in denouncing journalists. On the far right,
Amisraelhai.org calls for a boycott of all anti-Jewish vermin
including Jewish renegades, identified by a star of David, who
are promised a good crack on the jaw with a baseball bat.

Betar and the Jewish Defence League, linked to the Kach party, which
is banned in Israel, have a reputation for violence already, including
incidents at the Crif demonstration this April, when they attacked the
Peace Now contingent. Other militants demonstrate outside the offices
of media including AFP, Libération, Témoignage Chrétien and France
2. Le Monde's offices were plastered with slogans calling the
newspaper antisemitic and one of its cartoonists, Jean Plantu, a
Nazi. Others militants write threatening letters and emails. After
some articles I get 10 to 50 letters a day, two thirds of them
insulting or threatening, says Sylvain Cypel. The terms are
often identical, which suggests an orchestrated campaign.

He said he was once interviewed on TFJ, France's Jewish TV
channel, about his allegations of an Israeli spy network in the United
States, whose existence has since been confirmed by Yediot
Aharonot. To his amazement, after the interview there was a commentary
on what he had said by a psychologist who described him as a
self-hating Jew.

To the courtroom

The latest tactic is legal action. And the uncontested champion of the
courtroom is Gilles-William Goldnadel, president of the French section
of Lawyers Without Borders. After denouncing hatred (of Jews) in his
Nouveau Bréviaire de la Haine (8), Goldnadel sprang to the defence of
Oriana Fallaci's anti-Muslim diatribe. Ultra-Zionist lawyers have
instituted six court cases in six months, all lost. Blaming the media
for antisemitic violence is a way of intimidating editors and forcing
journalists into self-censorship. This appears to be working. Analysis
reveals cases where a concern for truth has been obstructed by
caution. Libération has published several investigations of
antisemitism among young Maghrebis in France but none of anti-Arab
racism among French Jewish youth, although such stories have been
suggested.

The intimidators are out to get certain journalists they consider
dangerous. Some people make no secret of the fact they want me
sacked, says France 2's Middle East correspondent, Charles
Enderlin. He was in Israel during the first year of the intifada,
where he was forced to move house because of threats. In Paris,
hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the France Television
building to present him with the Goebbels prize for
misinformation, after he reported the death of a young Palestinian
child. General Giora Eiland later admitted that the bullet that killed
the child was fired by the Israeli army, but the Metula News Agency,
unable to prove that the shot came from the Palestinians, decided to
assure its readers that the boy was still alive. Enderlin said:
Nobody has ever taken legal action against me. These people cannot
stand a Franco-Israeli journalist doing his job honestly.

Daniel Mermet, a producer of La-bas si je suis, a world current events
programme on France Inter radio, was cleared on all counts in two
lawsuits brought against him by Goldnagel's association, the
International League against Racism and Antisemitism (Licra), and the
Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF). The first was an action for
antisemitism concerning listeners' messages strongly critical of
Israeli government policy. The court accepted Mermet's argument
that the opinions expressed were unrelated to any racial
considerations. The second case was an action for incitement to
racial hatred concerning programmes in 1998 that had, in fact, been
directly responsible for securing the conviction of Hans Münch, a Nazi
doctor at Auschwitz, who had previously been acquitted after the war.

Although Mermet won both cases, he said he was badly affected: The
lawsuits were a concerted attempt at character assassination and
professional destruction. The approach to the management of Radio
France shows they were out to get me sacked. My programme was a
reference point in a media environment devoid of critical spirit, so
we had to be shown up as antisemites of the left. But despite the
verdicts, the people who persecuted me are still intimidating
journalists. The cases received little coverage, whereas an attack on
freedom of expression would normally have had the whole press up in
arms. The programme's website collected over 20,000 signatures
on a petition supporting Mermet.

A sensible warning

Pascal Boniface, director of the Paris-based Institute of
International and Strategic Relations (Iris) is another favourite
target. In both a note to the leaders of the Socialist party, and a
column in Le Monde (9), he warned the Jewish community that its
strategy might lead to the emergence of an organised Muslim community
representing 10 times as many voters. Everyone would be well
advised to fight for universal principles rather than applying
communal pressure.

This was clumsily worded, but sensible, yet the reaction was
excessive. Boniface was denounced by the Israeli
ambassador. Goldnadel, with Clément Weill-Raynal, a journalist with
France 3 and chairman of the Association of Jewish Journalists in the
French Press, demanded, unsuccessfully, the resignation of the Iris
management board. Jean-François Strouf, a member of the Paris Jewish
Consistory, blamed Boniface for the defeat of the Socialist
party's presidential candidate, Lionel Jospin.

The usually restrained Jewish monthly L'Arche carried a three-page
spread on Dr Pascal and Mr Boniface, suggesting Jekyll and
Hyde. Michel Gurfinkiel, editor-in-chief of the weekly Valeurs
Actuelles, described his attitude as the key to attacks on
Jews. A campaign against him began in the Socialist party, where
his note had been well received at the highest level. To call me an
antisemite is dangerous, says Boniface, who received death threats
after the incident. The gulf between what I write and these attacks
is incredible. I feel like the victim of a fatwa.

Alexandra Schwartzbrod began work as Libération's Jerusalem
correspondent just before the second intifada, and she learned quickly
and well, according to Enderlin, but she moves back to Paris this
month. Her embarrassed colleagues speak of political and professional
problems. Since January the Metula News Agency has repeatedly accused
her of incitement to racial hatred and anti-Israel propaganda, and
reported triumphantly in July: Alexandra Schwartzbrod is leaving at
last! Our friends at Libération are pleased to be able to confirm the
rumour.

This pressure has intimidated the press, but it may have had the
opposite effect on public opinion. According to an unpublished poll
(10), support for the Israeli position rose from 14 % to 16 % from
October 2000 to April 2002, while support for the Palestinians rose
from 18 % to 30 % over the same period. In the event of a military
conflict, 31 % would blame the Israeli authorities ( 20 % in October
2000), and 12 % the Palestinians (down from 14 %). Only 47 %
considered media reports objective (56 % in October 2000), while 16 %
thought them too favourable to Israel (compared with 9 %) and 14 % too
favourable to the Palestinians (compared with 9 %).

This public relations setback is causing doubts. During the campaign
against Charles Enderlin, the Crif distanced itself from
extremists. In his next lawsuit, Goldnadel will have to manage without
Licra and the UEJF. Marianne, which was for a while in the forefront
of denunciations of Jews who refused to toe the line, has calmed down.
Perhaps it has been understood that antisemitism cannot be fought
using the ideology of the far right.

It is time to end a situation in which—to quote Elie
Barnavi's Lettre ouverte aux Juifs de France (11)—the
extremists shout their extremism from the rooftops, probably because
they are unaware of it, while the majority talk in whispers.

Notes

(1) L'Express, Paris, 8 November 2001.

(2) Members of the General Jewish Workers' Bund, a non-Zionist
socialist party founded in Russia in 1897.

(3) See Sylvie Braibant and Dominique Vidal, What does it mean to
be Jewish?, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition,
August 2002.

(4) Ha'aretz, Tel Aviv, 22 April 2002. In the same issue,
Pierre-André Taguieff maintains that nobody has yet been able to
identify Le Pen unequivocally as an antisemite.

(5) SOS-rabble, a pun on the name of the French anti-racist
organisation SOS-racism.